Lighthouselin manning the ALK stand at Souter Lighthouse North East Coast Tyneside UK. I was lucky enough to be inside, it was a dreadful day weatherwise but I did get a few new members. I was inside the 'engine room' where all the equipment is installed for the fog horn and the electricity to power the light.

The WLS website is at http://www.worldlighthouses.org. Membership is free but you pay an entrance fee. Don't know how much but it will be about $30. Their newsletter is very good, as is the ALK magazine Lamp.

Nice pics. I'm also a member of WLS as well as being heavily involved with the ham radio event the International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend since 1999 which is held on the 3rd full weekend in August each year. About 5 years ago the ALK decided that our wekend would be a good opportunity to hole International Lighthouse Day on the Sunday of our event and Joy Adcock has been doing a web page each year listing participating lighthouses. Participation in both activities is growing each year.

I update the ILLW list of entrants daily and this morning we reached 282. Last year we had over 400 in the event and quite a lot of ALK lights open to the public. All the info about the ILLW is on my web site at http://illw.net

Lighthousing net has a presence on the ILLW web pages as our logo features Bodie Lighthouse taken by our own Gary Martin who kindly allowed me to make a logo out of it. It is now a registered trade mark as someone else tried to steal it 3 years ago.

Welcome to the forum, by the way. I hope you enjoyed Oz while you were here.

Hi Kevin. I lived in Australia for well over 20 years and have an Aussie passport. That is just a by the way point.

I was happy to take part in the ILLW and be involved as a represntative of the ALK at Souter Lighthouse. It is cared for by the National Trust. It was the first electric lighthouse. I am sure you all know this anyway. It is shame that the light no longer sends out a warning but I guess the automatic radio beacon still gives Souter life.

Thanks for posting the link to your site.

This year I will be away on holiday over the ILLW. I am quite upset about that as I had hoped to join in again. In 2007 the weather was bad and the guys on the radio link up at Souter had decided to give up contacting Hurst Castle as the noise from the flapping of the tent at Souter made hearing impossible.